


the long way back home

by fluffysfics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-it fic, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Mild Depictions of Self Harm, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Sentient TARDIS, Suicidal Thoughts, mild depictions of violence, the Master is sad but alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: Instead of letting the Death Particle be activated, the Doctor takes the Master on board her TARDIS to help him. She knows him better than anyone in the universe, so helping him won’t be too difficult, right? Right?Unfortunately, she’s got a few issues of her own to work through first.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 55
Kudos: 151





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my first multi chapter project!! all the chapters are pre-written and I’m planning to update every other day. also!! I made a Tumblr to talk about my writing, find me at fluffysfics.tumblr.com and please don’t hesitate to send me asks or messages to yell at me about stuff <3

The TARDIS console room was deathly silent, even the ship’s usual background hum gone utterly mute in protest. It made the expanse of the ship feel somehow larger and smaller all at once, and for the Doctor, standing alone with her hands pressed against the console, it was _awful_. 

The quiet had started as soon as she’d got done with everything, as soon as she’d made sure she was alone and safe and could afford to rest. She’d been hoping for a calming conversation with her ship after...after _everything_. But she rarely got what she hoped for, it seemed.   


“I had to do it,” the Doctor said, and her words echoed around the oppressive silence until they died away. 

No response. 

“I _had_ to. What else was I supposed to do, let him fight me until one of us blew up the planet?”

She looked at the small, unmoving figure of Ashad perched on the console, and then to the glowing quicksilver of the Cyberium thrashing madly in a glass-ish box on the floor. 

“Put those away, please,” she said to her unresponsive ship. “Somewhere no one will find them. I’m going to check on him.” 

The Doctor walked off into the silent corridors, trying not to feel like she’d made an awful mistake. She felt claustrophobic, uncomfortably aware of her own self without the usual soft background noise to relax into. Combined with her worries, it was enough to make her sick to her stomach. 

She wasn’t entirely sure what she expected to find when she entered the room she’d put the Master in. Furniture smashed all over the place, perhaps. This regeneration seemed like one of the angry ones. Or maybe he’d still be unconscious. Removing the Cyberium had taken a lot out of him. And out of her, but for entirely different reasons. 

She found neither of those things, but the sight waiting for her inside his room was _worse_. The Master was sitting cross-legged on the bed, looking...almost peaceful. 

The Doctor frowned, tilted her head at him. Something was wrong. She couldn’t tell what it was, but something was _definitely_ wrong. The air just felt...off. 

“Hey,” she tried. That sounded too casual, but it was something. 

“Hi.” His face gave nothing away. That was odd, considering how _expressive_ he usually was. 

“You look...” She trailed off, and made a vague noise that might be interpreted as ‘better than expected’, if you knew her well. 

The Master smiled. It was the sort of faintly indulgent smile that one might give to a child who hadn’t quite figured out a jigsaw puzzle yet, but who was very proud of their efforts anyway. “I’m here. Your prisoner, apparently. Not really how I thought today would end. But, I suppose it’s the right of higher life forms to make pets out of whatever filthy lower beings they choose, isn’t it?” There was a hint of a snarl there, on _filthy_ , but aside from that he was completely, terrifyingly calm. 

The Doctor blinked at him, his words taking a minute to process. Not what she’d been expecting. Hurtful, in fact. A lot more hurtful than anger would have been. At least if he was punching her, or screaming at her, she could take the moral high ground with him, but this...this was-

No. 

She took a step back, then another, and shut the door on him without saying another word. 

She walked back to the console room, purposefully not letting herself have any thoughts. If she had one, they’d all come rushing back in, and then she’d do something stupid like scream, or be sick, or sit down and not get up again for two days. 

Ashad and the Cyberium were still there. The Doctor looked reproachfully up at the ceiling, which was still being gut-wrenchingly silent. 

“C’mon, I asked you to move them,” she murmured. “You know I’d feel worse if I’d left him to die, and then you’d feel worse too. Or if I’d killed us both. You’d miss me if I’d done that.” She rested a hand on the console, fingertips trailing gently over well-worn buttons and switches. That sort of gentle touch usually earned her an appreciative warm glow, at the very least. 

Silence. 

“C’mon,” she said again, not following it up with any more cajoling this time. The lack of response was deafening. 

The Doctor stared up at the central column of her ship‘s console. The orange crystal usually pulsed in time with the humming, but now there was no humming, and the light in the crystal remained flat. 

Her shoulders sagged. “Please,” she whispered, and then all the thoughts she’d been avoiding came rushing back, and there was a lump in her throat, and- and she was suddenly sprawled on the floor without much awareness of how she’d gotten there, and she was... _crying_. 

Crying was new. Crying was something that this body was terrible at. Tears never seemed to come when she needed them to, and instead she’d just...stare, blankly, while her hearts broke on the inside. Arguably that was worse than crying, but then again this felt pretty bad, too. 

Hot tears streamed down her face, and she found herself hunched up under the console, where it was usually so warm and full of _life_ , the events of the day spinning through her head. Gallifrey, the Master, the Matrix, the Timeless Child, sending her companions away- fuck, the look on Yaz’s face made her hearts twist painfully just to remember. She hoped they’d all got back to Earth safely. She had no way of checking, with her ship busy sulking. And- oh, lovely, there was the reminder that there were thousands of years of her life that had been stolen from her, sending her spiralling off into tears again. 

The Master was on board her TARDIS, alive, and not trying to escape or kill her. She should be overjoyed. 

The Doctor had never felt more alone in her life, and it had never scared her more. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor takes care of some unfinished business.

It took a day and a half for the TARDIS to start talking to her again. The Doctor couldn’t remember the last time her ship had sulked for that long, and she couldn’t help feeling just a bit resentful. She’d needed comfort. She’d been needing comfort for thirty-six hours, and the only other living things in the entire ship’s vicinity were her angry ex-best friend and a sentient, incredibly powerful lump of metal. Not the best options. 

None of that resentment stopped her from leaping to her feet when the TARDIS lights flickered and she slowly started to hum again, and the Doctor stood up and flung her arms around the console. Her muscles ached. She hadn’t moved much, far too busy thinking, and spiralling, and occasionally crying. She really, really hated crying. 

“Missed you, old girl.” She pressed a kiss to the central column, and it was warm and pulsing with light again. Some of the heaviness in her hearts melted away- not much, but _some_. “Look- I’m sorry. Really. I know you don’t like him. I know what he did to you. But he’s my- we’re close. We _were_ close, I guess. Don’t know. He’s being all weird, and I think he needs me, so can you please go easy on him? Just for a bit. Promise you can bully him when he’s feeling better.” 

The TARDIS hummed at her, and the Doctor felt a strange sensation, like being hugged, but only in her mind. She closed her eyes, relaxing into it for as long as she could. Which, sadly, wasn’t _forever_. 

“We’ve got a bit of work to do before I go talk to Koschei again,” she murmured. Her ship seemed to mind that name slightly less than she minded ‘the Master’. The Doctor planted her lips against the central column again, then pulled back, flipping switches, doing her very best to look cheerful even though there was no one around to fool. Bad habits were hard to break. 

Five minutes later, she was sat in the TARDIS doorway, above a dying sun. The heat and light would have been overwhelmingly immense from this distance, if not for the bubble of protective shielding keeping her safe. 

The Doctor looked at the tiny figure of a Cyberman that she clutched in one hand, and she sighed. 

“I’m sorry, Ashad. Bet you never imagined your life ending this way. Well. I guess it’s already ended for you, but-“ She shook her head. “Not the nicest way to go. But it’s the only thing big enough to stop the Death Particle activating when you break. Sun going supernova.” 

The Doctor looked down at the rippling surface of the star beneath her. Any minute now, it would blow, and she’d drop Ashad in, and then she’d go back inside. 

She wondered what it would be like to fall into a supernova. How many regenerations she’d burn through before the TARDIS inevitably materialised around her to rescue her. 

The Doctor closed her eyes, and pictured body after body created in golden light, only to be destroyed instantly and reborn again. Maybe she could die enough times to forget who she was, and start all over again. 

She inched forward where she sat. It would be so _easy_ to fall- 

The TARDIS tipped backwards, and the Doctor let out a very undignified yelp of surprise as she found herself sliding across the floor to safety. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, scrambling to grab hold of one of the crystal columns to stop herself sliding back any further. 

“I’m fine,” she promised, holding the Cyberman aloft so she didn’t accidentally drop him on the floor. You could never be too careful. “I’m fine! Not gonna jump. I’m not.” 

The TARDIS made a fierce bonging noise at her, tipping even further backwards for a second before spinning back upright. The Doctor hastily shoved herself back up to her feet, smoothing down her clothes and walking back to the door. _Jump_ , said a traitorous thought, and she squashed it down before the TARDIS sealed the doors shut and took them somewhere less dangerous. Ten seconds until supernova. 

“I’m sorry,” she said again, running her fingertip down the more human side of Ashad’s face. “I hope you’d agree with me, if you were yourself. This is for the best.” 

There was a shift in the air, something immeasurably huge starting to take place, and the Doctor closed her eyes and hurled the Lone Cyberman into the heart of a dying star. 

She allowed herself five seconds to mourn, and then she sighed, and opened her eyes. “Right. You next.” She walked to the Cyberium, and started dragging the box across the floor. It was ridiculously heavy. 

“You,” she said, bending down to look at it. “You’re evil. Pure evil. But this’ll destroy you. Nothing can survive in the centre of a supernova. You deserve this.”

The Cyberium flashed and pulsed at her, silent but very, very alive. 

“You deserve this, she said again, and pushed the box right to the edge of her ship. “You do.” 

A wall of silver flattened itself against the edge of the box that was looking out into the sun, and then recoiled; flaring, dancing, twisting in unimaginably complex patterns. 

“You deserve this,” she said, one more time. The Doctor suddenly wondered who she was talking to. The Cyberium, or...

She looked down at her own hands, and sighed. 

Stars above, there was no one in the universe that she hated more than herself. Stupid, merciful Doctor, always showing clemency to things that didn’t deserve it. 

None of those bitter thoughts stopped her from closing the TARDIS doors, and dragging the Cyberium with her into the corridors. 

The box scraped along the metal floor with a sound that made her teeth hurt. She had to bend over uncomfortably to be able to move it, and it was heavy enough that her arms were aching after no more than a minute. 

_You deserve this_. 

It was a small door that she came across eventually, completely plain and unremarkable. The Doctor pushed it open, revealing a dimly-lit room. 

Muffled, hateful screaming came from several of the deadlock-sealed boxes. Things she’d trapped inside other objects, now sealed away for all eternity. In one corner of the room stood an elegant, full length mirror. The Doctor avoided looking directly at it; even so, she saw a flash of a red balloon, reproachful eyes, and she shuddered. 

With enormous effort, she lifted the Cyberium, placing it on top of a sealed box labelled ‘Carrionites’. That was one of the screaming ones, unfortunately, but she figured it was probably best to try and keep an alphabetical system in here. Just in case she ever felt inconveniently merciful again, and needed to find something in a hurry. 

“Bye,” she said, deciding against a speech about how sorry she was. She got the distinct sense that the Cyberium had been laughing at her all the way down the corridor. 

Back in her console room, the air felt just a little less oppressive without any Cyber-technology sitting around and haunting her. The Doctor gripped the console with both hands, taking a few deep, shuddering breaths. Her ship hummed, warm and comforting. 

“Hard part out of the way, right?” She gazed out at the walls, at the hundreds of almost-reflective hexagons that glinted in the light. She could see a vague picture of herself in them, pale and distorted. Tired. “Just got to deal with the Master now. Easy.” 

Neither she nor her ship were convinced by that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this may be my favourite chapter of the fic (aside from the last one 👀), I love me some angsty Doctor. also, quick reminder that I have a writing tumblr now, the URL is fluffysfics, same as my username on here <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor goes to see the Master, and makes an attempt to clear the air between them.

She brought him Chinese food, as a peace offering. Maybe sharing a takeaway like they’d used to do together back when she’d had Missy in the Vault wasn’t the best plan for making amends, but the Doctor was running low on good ideas lately, and this was all she could think of. 

The Master was lying down when she came in this time, and reading a book. He put it away before she could see the title, and she wondered if he was embarrassed, guilty, or just didn’t particularly want to talk about books. Maybe it was Earth fiction. He’d spent a lot of time down there, after all, thanks to-

Nope, not going there. 

“Hey,” she said, pulling a small box out of the plastic bag looped around her wrist. “I got you fried rice.” 

He looked at the box, and shrugged. 

Not a great start. 

“Are you any good with chopsticks this time around? I’m not, always have to ask them for a fork in the restaurant. Got you both, just in case. Didn’t know if-“

“I can use chopsticks,” the Master said shortly, holding out a hand. The Doctor plonked the box of rice in it, and then balanced a pair of chopsticks on top. He did not thank her, but apparently he was hungry, because he practically tore the box open and started eating with surprising grace considering how fast he was going. 

“Got you some of those little prawn dumpling things, too, she said, setting a paper bag down on the bed. “You used to like those.” 

He ignored her in favour of continuing to shovel food into his mouth. When had he last eaten? Time Lords didn’t need to eat as often as humans, but... He’d been on the TARDIS for a couple of days, and before that, she had absolutely no idea what he’d been up to prior to meeting her at the Boundary. He was eating like he’d gone at least a week without even a snack. 

The Doctor sat down on the end of the bed, half-expecting him to glare at her for it and finding herself somewhat disappointed that he didn’t. 

She dipped her hand into the takeaway bag, pulling out several wrapped fortune cookies and tearing the bright red paper off of one. She was hungry, but nothing on the menu had caught her eye, so she’d just asked for extra cookies with the biggest grin she could muster. Fortune cookies were always good. 

“So,” she said, munching on a mouthful of crunchy biscuit. “Uh. How’s the room? I told my TARDIS to be nice to you, if there’s anything you want then don’t hesitate to-“

“Pretty comfy, as prison cells go.” The Master stopped eating suddenly, and now he fixed her with a gaze that seemed to go right through her. His eyes were so dark this time around, so big and full of things that terrified her to look at too closely. 

The cookie suddenly tasted like wet sand in her mouth, and the Doctor swallowed it hastily. 

“Okay,” she said, a smile that was maybe more like a grimace twisting over her lips. “But- really, if there’s anything you want...video games, more books, an instrument? You liked that piano, when you were Missy. D’you play anything?”

“Not bad on guitar. Smashed one over someone’s head in a pub fight once,” he said. For just a second, something glittered in the Master’s eyes, and then it was gone, replaced by dull apathy. It was like he was _trying_ to be calm with her, and it was infuriating when she _knew_ he was naturally predisposed to being the kind of person who dangled her off the edge of global landmarks and tried to make her blow up planets. 

“Well- I could get you a guitar,” she offered. “You could write songs! Love to hear you play some time.”

“No,” he said flatly. 

“Oh.” It was very hard to carry on a conversation with him when he was being like this. Normally, the Doctor could chatter away for hours on end with barely any input from her conversation partner. The Master seemed to be actively _trying_ to get her to shut up. 

“I’m rubbish at music this time around,” she said, doing her best to carry on unfazed. “Think the universe saw how good I was on guitar last time around and just went ‘nah, gotta make her useless at that now to make up for it’.”

The Master stared at her, and then his face shifted slightly. He sat forwards, and the Doctor felt a sudden, inexplicable dread pool in her stomach. 

“Does that bother you? Shame you can’t do anything about it, isn’t it- oh, wait.” He flashed her a cruel smile. Still so calm, and calculated. Predatory. “You _can_. You could die as many times as you wanted, even if it took a thousand attempts, until you ended up with a body that was good at music. Aren’t you _special_?” Somehow, he made ‘special’ sound like the worst insult in the world. 

“Koschei—“

He smacked the takeaway box off the bed, the remains of the rice inside scattering and spinning across the floor. For just a second, the air felt red-hot, and then- it was almost _physical_ , the way the Master reined in his anger, shoved it down until he was person-sized again, until he didn’t seem to fill the room with his rage. He was shaking with the effort of holding it in now, his eyes almost black as they burned into her. She _swore_ they weren’t usually that dark. 

“Don’t use that name on me, Doctor. You lost the right to do that a long time ago. You were never really mine, were you, even back then? I was just some nobody in a long line of people you were _more than_.” 

“No,” she objected, and the Master cut her off with a dispassionate laugh before she could get another word out. 

“You said it yourself, _dear_ , didn’t you? _I am so much more than you_. You said those words, to me, and you meant them. And then you knocked me out, and dragged me in here, like a coward. I’d rather be dead, Doctor. I’d rather be dead than trapped in here with you.”

She stiffened, suddenly remembering a gunshot, a body bleeding out in her arms, her own old voice pleading for him to regenerate, please, just _regenerate_ \- 

“I’m sorry, Master.” The Doctor was tired, so tired. The hours she’d spent collapsed on the console room floor hardly counted as rest. “I just wanted you here until I knew you’d recovered from the Cyberium. I can let you go, if you really want—“

“You won’t.” 

The Doctor stopped, and held his gaze for a long moment, trying to figure out his game. As ever, she didn’t have a clue. He could be infuriatingly inscrutable when he wanted to be. “Why not?”

“Because if you let me go, I’m going to climb the nearest tall building and throw myself off it until I stop regenerating,” the Master said, evenly. 

That hit home. That stung her right where she hadn’t been expecting to be stung, in the part of her that was utterly terrified of losing the only person who’d ever been a constant in her lives. _The lives she remembered_ , part of her said. She ignored it. Those were the only lives that mattered for now. 

The Doctor stared at him, and remembered the people he’d possessed in a desperate fight to stay alive, how he’d come back time and time again because if there was one thing that defined the Master, it was his all-consuming desire for _survival_. 

“Why?” It was a pathetic response, but she had no idea what else to say. 

“Because I don’t matter to you,” the Master said, closing his eyes. “I’m some annoying fly you could just- _swat_ \- if you wanted to. Maybe if I died, I could hurt you one last time, just a bit, even if it wouldn’t make up for _anything—“_

“Stop it.”

“I’m some useless, broken copy. Not good for anything, certainly not good enough for _you_ , so why not just—“ 

“Stop it!” 

The Master’s eyes opened again. They were shining with tears. The apathetic mask had dropped away, and he looked miserable, utterly miserable. Like both of his hearts were shattered into pieces, and someone was driving a knife into the empty space between them. 

“ _You_ said this to me, Doctor. You _told_ me I was less than you. What else am I supposed to think, hmm? You told me I was nothing.” 

“But- you’re the Master, you’re not supposed to-“

Not supposed take these things seriously. 

Not supposed to be crying, and making her feel guilty. 

Not supposed to want to die, not supposed to think anything like this, not supposed to be anything but some constant, stable presence to pop up and balance her out every so often, when she got a little too big for her boots. 

Fuck, she’d been selfish. 

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said, weakly. She stood up, and she backed away to the door, and she left him again. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor has a chat. Theoretically, to the Cyberium. Actually, to herself.

The Doctor freed the girl in the mirror. Her species didn’t live long, and she’d already used up most of her life back on Earth, but at least she’d get a few days back on her own planet now. A small, token gesture, to make up for so, so many years spent locked away. Did it really make up for that? No. Definitely not. But it was something. 

It was long overdue, perhaps. Or maybe the Doctor just needed something, some tiny little good thing, to make her feel like she wasn’t such a terrible person for what she’d said to the Master. 

It didn’t work very well. So, she found herself perched on a deadlocked box that contained an unused Dalek progenitor device- the floor was covered in broken shards of mirror so she couldn’t sit there, as much as she wanted to- and she stared at the Cyberium. 

“What did _you_ see in his head?” She folded her arms across her chest, watching the hypnotic swirls. Like mercury, but an Earth metal could never be so beautifully dynamic. 

The box did not give her a response. The Doctor hadn’t really been expecting it to. 

“Guess I didn’t realise how much the Vault messed him up,” she murmured. “And then- everything he found in the Matrix. And then I said _that_ , on top of everything...“ She groaned, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t know how to fix this. I can’t. Maybe. I know I can’t win everything...” 

Could she actually not fix it, or was she just making excuses? The box full of Carrionites just under the Cyberium shrieked loudly, and the Doctor wondered if she should free them, too. Free every damned thing in this room, because maybe _one_ of them would go on to do a good thing, and fuck all the chaos the others would cause, she could say she’d done something good for the universe. 

Selfish. She was being selfish, again. Was she selfish, this time around? She hadn’t had much time for introspection so far. 

“I owe it to him to try, right?” She tilted her head, watching the pulsing curves of the Cyberium like she could somehow ascribe any meaning to them. “Yeah. I owe him.”

She’d loved him, once. No, that was wrong. She still loved him, and she always had. There was a deep-down part of her that wanted to drag him into her arms even though she hated hugging most people, and hold him until everything was alright again, and then maybe for a while longer after that. 

That wouldn’t work and she knew it. Things needed to be said first, apologies needed to be made. She’d have to make them, and mean them. The Doctor really, really hated having to apologise. 

In theory, it was easy enough. Pull a sad face, repeat how sorry you were until it seemed to do some good. But that wasn’t going to be enough for the Master. He deserved better from her. He deserved the most genuine apology she was capable of, and _that_ was going to hurt. 

“I have to talk to him. I’m really, _really_ bad at talking. And he doesn’t want to listen to me. How’m I supposed to get around _that_?” 

The Cyberium flared at her, expanding to fill the box before shrinking back into a pulsing ball of metal. 

“Yeah, I don’t know either. But- I gotta try, ‘cause the alternative is letting him go and knowing that he still wants to d-“ The Doctor found herself choking on the word. “Wants to...not be here. And then I’d be responsible for him...not being here. And I really can’t think of anything worse than that.” 

It was strange, that. Half the universe could get blown up, the _Earth_ could get blown up, even, and there was some selfish little part of her brain that said it would be fine, as long as the Master would still be around. It wasn’t a part of her that she liked. It was a part she actively hated, in fact. But that didn’t change the simple truth that it was _there_. 

She wondered if the Cyberium was laughing at her. Archetype of the Time Lords, and here she was fussing over a petty squabble with her ex. 

“You’re mean,” she said to the Cyberium, which didn’t seem to care at all. “I don’t want to be the archetype of anything, y’know. I’m just _me_. Don’t really think I’m more than him, I was just stupid and angry and I never _think_ when I’m angry, and he’s _not_ my ex, I think technically we’re still married from that time when we were young, so that goes to show what you know, you big lump of- of- metal,” she finished, somewhat anticlimactically. 

And now she was getting annoyed at a thing in a box that didn’t care, and probably hadn’t even been laughing at her. The Doctor sighed, and stood up, a shard of mirror crunching under her boot. 

“I’m gonna win this,” she said. The alternatives were unthinkable. “And you’re going to sit in a box forever.” 

Fists clenched, she stalked out of the room, iron resolve back in place. It was now or never; she had to make things right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a short chapter, but I liked writing this one- I always enjoy those scenes in canon where the Doctor is mostly just rambling to themself


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything that needs to be said, finally gets a chance to be said.

When the Doctor got back to his room this time, the Master _had_ smashed up his furniture. There was a bookshelf on the floor, books scattered everywhere and a dent in one wall where he seemed to have thrown something at it. The bed was practically torn apart, and there was- oh _fuck_ , there was blood on the wall and the floor. Ice filled the Doctor’s stomach- she looked around, resolve turning immediately to panic. 

The Master was sitting against the edge of a desk that he hadn’t overturned yet. He was alive, thank fuck for that, but his hair was a mess, there was blood on his face, and his hands were bruised and bloodied almost beyond recognition. 

“What did you do?” The Doctor crossed the room in an instant, dropping to her knees next to him. 

He didn’t say anything. She wrapped her hands around his wrists, lifting them, eyes wide and round as she took in the damage. He’d been punching the wall, hadn’t he? Hard enough to split his knuckles and break his bones, all the small finger ones that were annoyingly hard to heal. 

The Doctor didn’t even hesitate. She closed her eyes, drawing on the well deep inside of her, and coated her hands with golden light. She needed as much contact as possible- she laced her fingers with his, ignored his grimace of pain, ignored the way he opened his mouth to protest- and she shot regeneration energy into him. It sparked and fizzled around his hands, and she felt bones click into place, watched cuts stitch back together and swollen bruises slowly deflate and melt from purple back to brown. 

And then it was gone, and she was left holding his hands. She said nothing, not quite trusting herself, and eventually it was the Master who tugged his hands away and shoved them into his lap. 

“You didn’t have to do that, I don’t need your pity,” he snapped. 

“Had no reason not to,” she pointed out. Infinite regenerations, might as well put them to use. That part, she didn’t say out loud, but the Master’s face twisted like she had. 

“Yes, thank you for the reminder. I almost forgot how much useless _filth_ I am compared to you, Doctor. Perhaps I should be grovelling in thanks.” 

“Grovelling doesn’t suit you, Master.” The Doctor shifted from her knees into a sitting position, knees drawn up to her chest and arms folded on top of them. She held his gaze. “You’re too good for that.”

She’d caught him by surprise there. He drew back slightly, the back of his head bumping against the desk he was leaning on. 

“Didn’t seem to think so in the Matrix chamber, did you?” There was a sting in his voice, but it was weak. Part of him sounded...questioning, hopeful, like he desperately wanted to be proved wrong. 

“Yeah, well, you know me, Koschei. Better than anyone, in fact. Always been a complete idiot, haven’t I? Oh, look at little Theta Sigma, coming into class with bright blue hands and face ‘cause his last experiment blew up on him. Hope that Koschei boy is a good influence on him, or else he’ll end up kicked out of the Academy.” 

He held her gaze. The Doctor did her best to smile. The expression shook, and then faded. Still, the Master said nothing. Nothing was an improvement on blowing up at her for using his name, she supposed. Maybe he was just too tired to be angry about it for now. 

“My point is, I said a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have. And you’ve- you’ve _never_ been less than me. Never ever. You’re a genius. You’ve always been smarter than me. Only other person at the Academy with any common sense, ‘cept Ushas, and she was too busy with science to have much time for any of us. Course I was going to fall in love with you. And then _stay_ in love with you, even when you did stupid things like steal people’s bodies, or destroy a third of the universe, or become a snake, or die on me, or betray me-“

She cut herself off. She was rambling. There had been a point there, at the start, and she’d definitely lost it. 

“Betray you? You were going in chronological order then. When did I betray you?” The Master sounded genuinely confused, the weariness fading from his voice for a moment. 

The Doctor blinked at him. “You left me for your old self. On the Mondasian space station,” she said, slowly. Cautiously. 

The Master laughed. Actually laughed, and it was hollow and sad and hurt her hearts to hear. Whatever followed that laugh, she was not going to like. 

“I was going to come back. Just had to stab the other me a few times first. Then he shot me in the back. Arsehole. Then _you_ never came back for me.” 

Yeah, she’d been right. She didn’t like that _at all_. 

“I...I died,” the Doctor said, frowning. “That’s why I never looked for you. I died, and then I woke up on my TARDIS. No idea what happened.” 

The Master stared at her. She stared at him. 

“Well we’re both fucking idiots, aren’t we?” He dragged a hand down his face, pulling smears of dried blood across his skin, and sighed. “Doesn’t really change anything. You’re still the Timeless Child. I’m still in your shadow. You have no reason to care about me.”

“Why do I need a _reason_?” Oh, that had come out a bit loud. The revelation that he’d never actually betrayed her had shaken the Doctor, left her questioning everything she’d done to him this regeneration. How much fighting could have been avoided if she’d just _asked_ what had happened to him? Thought to _talk_ , instead of fighting back? “Why can’t I just care?”

“That’s not how the universe works,” the Master snarled. “You know it, well as I do. Everything’s just one big fucked up power play, and you don’t really care about me, because you can’t. Judging by what you told me when I was O, you can barely bring yourself to care about the whole _universe_. So how could you ever give a shit about _me_?”

She reeled back, stung by the mention of O. That was something she’d been avoiding thinking about too hard; just how much she’d texted him, how much she’d told him. Night after night of being unable to sleep, staying up and telling him how tired she was, how sometimes she found it nearly impossible to care about whatever situations the universe needed saving from. 

“I used to tell you when you were O that the universe just felt too cold and empty to bother with saving,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “Like it was missing something. Pretty sure that what it was missing was _you_.”

The Master snorted like he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t say anything. The Doctor took her chance, and carried on. 

“I mean it. You’re my oldest friend. You’re the only person I’ve ever looked at and thought _yes, I could spend all my lives with him_. Or _her_ , when you were Missy. Doesn’t matter what you look like, what you’ve done, what _I’ve_ done. Doesn’t matter who I used to be. Maybe there’s a lot of me that I don’t remember, but the me that I do remember has never wanted anything more than to be with you. Doesn’t that count for something? It does to me.” 

“I don’t deserve it. Even if you want me. I’m a _mistake_. Bad copy.” 

The Doctor looked up at him. The Master had let his head fall back against the desk he was leaning on, eyes closed and face full of _tiredness_ , above anything else. 

She didn’t do hugs. But she could do them for him. 

“I had a daughter who was a clone once. That’s kind of like a bad copy, right?” She scooted closer, pressing herself against the Master’s side and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He didn’t move. “Jenny, Donna called her. She was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Smart as anything, and so brave. Completely her own person. She died, but- she was part me, you know, part Time Lord, and sometimes I think I should check on her, just in case-“ 

“Thrilled as I am to learn that there might be some more of your unique genetic code wandering the universe, are you making a point?” 

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Um. You’re way less a copy of me than Jenny was. And she was her own person, and she was brilliant. With you, basically the only thing you got from me is how to regenerate. The rest of you, that’s all _you_. So why shouldn’t I think _you’re_ brilliant, too?”

The Master just sighed. But a sigh wasn’t an argument, so it brought a wide smile to the Doctor’s face. Maybe she was getting somewhere. 

“I do think you’re brilliant, by the way. Just in case that wasn’t clear. And fantastic, and stunning, and dazzling, and impressive, and amazing, and all those other good words. Always have done. Probably shouldn’t have, at times, but-“

“Shut up,” the Master said, and without any more warning than that, he kissed her. 

The Doctor’s eyes widened, and then she closed them, because she was sure that was what you were supposed to do when you were kissed, and then she kissed him back. She hadn’t done this with anyone since regenerating, and fuck, it was probably _ridiculously_ clumsy, but she couldn’t bring herself to care at all. The Master’s lips were warm and soft, and above all of that they were _familiar_. They always had been. 

She broke away eventually, breathing hard, and stared at the Master. It took her a minute, but she opened her mouth to speak, only for him to put a hand over it immediately. 

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t. I don’t want to talk, not now. Please.”

He pulled his hand away, and the Doctor nodded, softness filling her gaze. He looked so tired. About as tired as she felt, really. 

“Wanna take a nap?” She glanced towards the bed, and then remembered that it was in pieces. The blankets, however, were intact, and bundled on the floor in a heap. 

“You’re suggesting we sleep on the floor?” The Master raised an eyebrow. She smiled hopefully at him, and nodded. “...You never change.”

There was a distinct note of fondness in his tone, behind the rough weariness, and that made the Doctor’s hearts soar. She pulled him over to the pile of blankets, extricating one to put on top of them and then curling up on the rest. She wrapped her arms around the Master, _tightly_ , like she half-expected him to disappear. He didn’t seem to mind, pressing his face against her shoulder with a long, heavy sigh. 

“Night, Koschei,” she murmured. Was it night? Didn’t really matter. “Hope you sleep well.”

“...You too, Theta.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy this took me SO long to get to a place where I’m happy with it, so I really hope you all enjoyed this very dramatic chapter


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a little more that needs to be said; finally, they can look to the future.

The Doctor woke up with a start, feeling _cold_. It took her a minute to remember where she was, and then to realise; the Master wasn’t in her arms. She panicked, snapped her eyes open-

And saw him two feet away, sitting on the floor and watching her. For just a second, he looked soft, contemplative. Then he noticed she was awake, and alertness rushed across his features. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, before she could get out so much as a ‘hello’, or a ‘good morning’, or an ‘it’s very rude of you to not be hugging me right now’. 

“Oh?” The Doctor sat up. The Master’s gaze twitched up to her hair, and a smile flickered across his lips. She was so pleased to see it that she barely even cared that he was laughing at her, and she beamed at him as she smoothed down her unruly bedhead. 

“Yeah.” The Master tipped his head back, and sighed. He wasn’t looking at her, so the Doctor let her gaze wander down the exposed length of his throat, only to realise a moment later that maybe now wasn’t quite the time. She couldn’t entirely get that kiss out of her head, it seemed. 

“You gonna tell me what you were thinking about?” She scooted closer, nudging him gently. 

“...Yeah.” He shifted, and the Doctor found herself faced with those eyes of his. They were impressive this time around, huge and dark and beautiful. Brooding. She’d meant to think _brooding_ there, and _beautiful_ had slipped out instead. Oops. Well, both worked. “Think I do want to stay on your ship for a while.” 

The Doctor couldn’t help the way her face lit up. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been overjoyed to the point of _needing_ to hug someone before, not in this body, but _that_ had certainly done it. She flung her arms around the Master, and he didn’t even hesitate before relaxing and leaning into her. 

“Good,” she murmured, her face pressed against his hair. “Thank you.” It was much, _much_ better to have him here voluntarily than it was to have him as her prisoner. 

“Mm,” he said, and he sighed. “Don’t quite know what I’d do with myself, if I went anywhere else. You know... Gallifrey didn’t feel like home to me anymore, the last time I visited. When I found everything in the Matrix. It just felt like...some planet. Completely random. And I thought it was because I’d spent too long in the Vault, but that never felt like a home, either. Except...” He trailed off, and looked determinedly at the floor. “Except when you were there with me, Doctor. On the good days, when we were just...being friends.”

Oh. That was a surprisingly sweet sentiment. The Doctor tilted her head, wondering how to respond in a way that wouldn’t patronise him or put him off saying anything else nice for a year. He was like a cat; do the wrong thing once, and he’d hiss and run off until his wounded pride had healed. All his selves were like that, exactly the same ego. 

She settled for kissing him again, because she really couldn’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t seem to mind, and this time the Doctor found one of his hands tangling into her hair, keeping her _close_ , and it was so incredibly disappointing when the need for air finally overwhelmed the need for _him_. 

She sat back, breathing hard, watching the Master recover too. He seemed to get himself together faster than she could; he moved closer, cupping her face in both hands and pressing his forehead against hers. The Doctor felt most of the breath she’d just got back immediately leave her again. 

“You’re home to me, Theta.” The words echoed in her head as well as on his lips, and her eyes widened. She didn’t cry much this regeneration. She _didn’t_. And yet, tears were filling her eyes for the second time in what must have been less than three days. Happy tears, this time. 

_Happy crying, humany-wumany_. 

She almost laughed, remembering the self who had said that. Instead, she reached up, draping her arms around the Master’s shoulders. 

“Gonna have to find you a new room, if you’re home now,” she murmured. “Gonna have to show you how to navigate the TARDIS. And tell her not to be too mean to you.”

“Theta.”

“Oh, and I still want to hear you play guitar for me- what?”

“I said something nice to you. Now you’re just rambling. Rude.”

The Doctor sighed, and smiled, pressing their foreheads together a little tighter. It was _so_ like the Master to say something like that, demand she make herself vulnerable in turn because he already had. So much like her Koschei, the one she knew better than anyone, the one she’d fallen in love with as a boy and never stopped loving since. 

She owed him a little vulnerability. 

“You’re home to me too, Koschei.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND IT’S DONE!
> 
> thank you to everyone who’s read and commented along the way on this, my first multichapter fic in YEARS... you’re all great, and I hope very much that you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed writing this, and seeing all of your comments <3

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed!! comments and kudos appreciated as always, interested to know everyone’s thoughts on this fic so far!


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